After many struggles in teaching persuasion and marking ‘persuasive’ writing, I developed this essay based on the need for teachers to have a free chocolate…all the time! The bad example is based on the mistakes that the kids were making. The good example highlights sentence openers etc. that they can use… I’ve used this examples with students at KS2 and KS3 - Modelling the poor example seems to really improve the quality of writing before we even begin.

I did this with year 4 in the final week before christmas holidays. They loved it! It was very structured groupwork - pupils in country teams researching how christmas is celebrated in their country, then presented this at the end. Our main learning outcome was to develop teamwork skills and we did this through a structured approach. But we also worked on our research and writing skills, creativity, speaking, listening and confidence. The kids were really fascinated by the different cultures and customs from around the world too.

This is planning I created a few years ago to use with a year 5 class. We were asked to take the whole first week of term with our new classes to perform ‘getting to know you’ activities Take a look at the plan. It worked really well - it was a great week! I’ve also added the pictures we used for the wartime artwork. The kids throughly enjoyed this activity - they looked at the wartime poster and adapted them for school e.g keep calm and carry on working! These posters stayed up in class all year long. Activities are easily adapted for KS1 - KS2 pupils, and parts of this could be taken and used at KS3 in PSHE, Tutor time, Art or History.

A four-week long literacy unit, complete with a few worksheets. The resources we used were photocopies from various books. The Scholastic ‘Hot Topics’ Pirates book proved to be very useful and I recommend spending on that too! Pupils really enjoyed creating their pirate instruction manuals. The topic ensured that they were very engaged, especially the boys.

I read the Christian creation story to the class in RE. We write the order of key events on the board, and they complete the sheets (differentiated for lower, core and upper.) Suitable for KS2 children and KS3.

Two sheets including maps, enabling students to study the different geographical features using an atlas, coloured and labelled the sheets. Great for KS2 or KS3 students.

This is a powerpoint showing different pictures of 3D shapes around the world (toblerones and pyramids etc.) Great for a starter or plenary on shapes - ask kids to write down names of shapes on wipeboards to support AFL. I’ve used this with lower ability/SEND maths classes in year 6, as well as with year 9 SEND pupils. Suitable for KS1 and KS2 as well as LA mathematicians at KS3.

This is a literacy unit, lasting one week, based on balanced argument. Pupils spend the first part of the week reading/evaluating sources and then put together their own balanced argument. Normally, the week would end with a big write to test the children’s skills but we had a random observation on Friday so we joint-planned the Goldilocks lesson - see extra notebook file. All three year 6 teachers received ‘outstanding’ observation feedback for Goldilocks :-) The unit mixes English and Literacy with History source skills through our Henry VIII topic. I’ve used elements of this when teaching Tudors to Year 8 pupils in History lessons.

This is a year 6 unit based on Belief - What is it? What’s the difference between belief and fact? Why/who believes? Do beliefs change? and so on. There&‘s a couple of resources that aren&’;t on here thought bubbles: I just write in class on paper. World Religions various beliefs to sort and answer sheet (this is on TES: author - missjulieclark) It’s a good juicy PSHE/SEAL topic - lots of interesting discussion to be had. Easily adapted for KS3 students to use in RE lessons or PSHE.

I hand out my contract to pupils in the first week of having a new class. They then write their own. We discuss the ins and outs of this, specifically thinking about WHY we have certain rules. I laminate theirs and mine and put them on the wall to be referred to whenever one of us steps out of line! There’s also a planning frame for poor writers.

I cut up this worksheet into sections and blue tack it at points around the classroom. I then split the class into the same number of teams. Each team must send one envoy to learn as many facts about that question as they can and then report back to their team, who complete the team question sheet (last page.) Envoys are disqualified if they go more than once. A great, fast paced lesson and pupils are often so competitive that they completely forget they are learning! Builds on team skills, speaking and listening too! I go through the information at the end and award points per key piece of information. Winner gets housepoints/prize.

This is a great lesson - I’ve taught it to year 4 and 8…both worked well! Pupils have to develop their own antarctic animals that could survive in the harsh climate, so they had to think carefully about the characteristics of animals - the worksheet alongside should help guide them.

Big write task based on writing recounts, and giving pupils options to choose from, all relating to an imaginary school trip which they’re asked to recall. Planning frame for bullet points before they begin (I usually give 10 minutes for this.) A quick, engaging topic, for any kind of independent writing. Suitable for KS2 students. Works as a baseline assessment or as an end of unit test, to see how students’ writing skills have developed independently.

A behaviour and consequences flow chart that you can use after an event with pupils to discuss what they did and what they could have done. I find this useful in that it encourages SEND pupils, including children with Autism, a logical approach to explaining an emotional reaction. I allow children to draw their answers if they’re not comfortable in writing them. I have used this in detention so that pupils are at least thinking about why they’re suffering consequences - because of their own choices.

Unit plan for an Ancient Greeks topic, in which we challenged pupils to create their own museum exhibit based on Ancient Greeks. This was a big undertaking, but we pulled it off and the children in all classes were incredibly motivated and engaged. They worked tirelessly to create resources for the opening of the museum exhibit - parents and staff were very proud of the end results!

My groups range from Cyclops(LA - ranging from 2B to 3C) to Dragons (HA - around 4A-4B.) They have 5 20 minute sessions per week and each group does a different activity every day. They use these questions in a couple of the sessions- they’re based on the APP grid reading assessment and help me when I’m assessing levels at the end of each half term.

I used this with particular autistic children that struggle to explain in words what they are feeling and why they are feeling this way - e.g. after an argument on the playground. They can write down what happened and you can give them house points as an incentive for telling you how they feel.

This is a revised History topic plan for the Tudors - Key skills match those taken from the New curriculum as of 2013. I’ve not included any resources because none are my own - all taken from searching TES and finding bits and pieces to match!

In celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday, here’s the play script from my class assembly whereby pupils perform a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Nice and easy to understand, and it worked a treat!

This is a slow writing task that I set as homework for SEND students in year 7 and 8, after they have completed similar slow writing activities. Great for reinforcing a range of skills, punctuation, grammar, sentence and word types and creative writing techniques. Suitable for KS2 and KS3 students, including struggling writers, LA pupils and SEND. Great as a structured end of unit piece of writing/Big Write or general independent writing. Easily differentiated further.